After two years, Norris left college in an aborted attempt to pursue a career as comic strip cartoonist. He recalled in 2006,

“

I left Midland ... to pursue the publication of a comic strip (Hobo Cupboard). Emerson’s brother Myron was in radio in Chicago. He had written a script for a comic strip and I was to draw it, which I did. Myron sold it to a syndicate in Ohio. As was the custom the syndicate wanted six weeks of the strip in advance. I couldn't get that much work done and keep up the chores and studies I had [at] Midland. So I returned to Ohio to get the strip ready for publication. Well, before I finished the six weeks of artwork the syndicate folded. I was out of college and out of work...."[3]

Norris and Weisinger introduced the undersea superheroAquaman in the eight-page story "The Submarine Strikes" in More Fun Comics # 73 (Nov. 1941). That same year, Norris began drawing the adventure comic stripVic Jordan for PM, one of the New York's daily afternoon papers. Norris said in 2007 that he had inadvertently signed an exclusive contract with PM and not realized this for year, after which he had to give up the "Aquaman" feature.[5] In 1943, King Features Syndicate assigned Norris to write and draw the existing strip Secret Agent X-9, on which he worked for three months before being drafted into the U.S. Army.[4]

While Norris told one interviewer that, "The Japanese came in with these things in their hands and wanted to surrender",[3] he told another that the leaflet, designed to look like a comic-book page, had not yet gone into print when the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan, scuttling the project.[4]

With writer Gaylord DuBois, Norris co-created the Gold Key jungle characters Kono and Tono in the namesake series The Jungle Twins, which ran 17 original issues (April 1972 - Nov. 1975), followed by reprints.

Norris was living in Oceanside, California at the time of his death. Norris and his wife Ann, who died in 2000, had two sons, Michael and Paul Jr. (called Reed).[4] Norris is buried in Glen Haven Memorial Gardens in New Carlisle, OH.